


Marked

by orphan_account



Series: F&F and the No Good, Very Bad Imperium [1]
Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Big feelings, F/M, Past Solas/Female Lavellan - Freeform, Post-Trespasser, adventure and pre-romance, badass revolutionaries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 16:31:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16391201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Retired Inquisitor Firiel Lavellan needs help: to free her people from slavery in Tevinter and to regain her confidence in battle after losing her arm. Supposedly, Fenris can help.





	Marked

**Author's Note:**

  * For [princessbatteringram (Cyriedearie)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyriedearie/gifts).



> Part of a trade with [PrincessBatteringRam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyriedearie/pseuds/princessbatteringram). Check out her [amazing Inquisitor here](http://princessbatteringram.tumblr.com/tagged/firiel-lavellan)!
> 
> I wrote most of this on my [picarto stream](https://picarto.tv/tkduveraun)! Follow me there or on [tumblr](https://tk-duveraun.tumblr.com/) to know when I'm live.

At dusk, the roads still hummed with warmth captured from the sun. Summer was only just starting, but the few weeds that managed to grow between the cobblestones in Vol Dorma were dry and crumbling under hooves and cart wheels. So close to the Imperial Highway, the citizens paid no heed to the two cloaked and hooded figures on the side of the road. After all, curiosity was not a good enough reason to die if the figures were blood mages. 

And chances were good that they were. Both carried large, wrapped objects on their backs - staves protected from the sun - and they  _ throbbed _ with magic. The air cooled as the sun set, but only slightly as sandstone heaved sighs of relief and spat their trapped heat out. People in Tevinter knew better than to stare, to inspect, mages, even suspicious ones. The figures shifted their weight naturally, none of the mechanical, jerky motions of a golem or leashed spirit.

That was something.

As the sun disappeared over the hills, the figures disappeared between one glance and the next. They left nothing but the faint scent of lyrium and magic in their wake. Back in the safety of their heavily-bespelled wagon, Firiel Lavellan shoved back her hood and drank in the cool air. “It’s as hot as Andruil’s thigh gap out there! How can anyone live like this?”

Fenris threw off his hood with a shake of his head and yanked his gloves off, throwing them on top of crate. The veins of lyrium on his hands glowed from all of the enchantments. Protections against fire and eavesdroppers. Wards against hostile magic. Priceless, glowing crystals that could supposedly stop a Templar’s Silence. “These people tolerate blood magic. What’s a little heat to them?”

Firi stares at him with such unamused intensity that her eyes dry. She moves to rub them, but her magical prosthetic hits her face with too much enthusiasm. “June’s breath, this thing is a menace!”

“Do you invoke June because they are the god of craftsmen or just out of habit?”

“I could do without the smart comments, if it’s all the same to you,” Firi hissed. “We’re going to be killing a magister and raiding his artefact collection. That’s not exactly easy work.”

Fenris removed his greatsword from his back and leaned back against the inside of the wagon. “It was your idea to come alone.”

“They’re just one mage,” Firi said. “I’m the Inquisitor. If I can’t handle one little magister and his thugs, I should hang up the arm and retire.”

Fenris raised his eyebrows as he removed the coverings from his sword. The enchantments on the silverite blade lit up as the lyrium in his hands passed over them. Even without the wagon’s enchantments, it would cause a painful feedback loop, so Fenris settled for a once-over before setting the blade aside. “Are you prepared or not? Magister Priscus will not miss a moment of hesitation.”

Firi made a fist with her prosthetic and the veins of caged magic glowed green and cast sharp shadows onto her face. Her vallaslin looked like the grasping fingers of a terror demon. “I’m not afraid of them.”

He grunted. Fenris kicked off his boots and flexed his ankle. They had no need of their disguises for the attack on the manor house. “I counted more than two score of his personal soldiers leaving for Minrathous. Either the Magisterium is becoming paranoid or Priscus has displeased the Archon.”

“And so been ordered to send a bigger part of his forces? I could see it.” She pulled off her own boots and tore at the lacing of the loose tunic over her armor. “Either that or Solas is stirring up trouble.” The name is like gravel in Firi’s mouth and she spits it out like its sour halla milk.

“It would be better to know which,” Fenris said. He picked at the back of his gauntlet. “If the Dread Wolf is on the prowl,” he paused to grimace at his own word choice, “Priscus may have strengthened his magical defenses.”

“He still won’t be nearly as paranoid as-” Firi glanced at him. “-some other magisters. And you saw the reports: his wards aren’t half as powerful as the ones on the wagon.” She knocked on one of the support beams for emphasis.

“Priscus and their family have been magisters since the Magisterium was founded. We may discover ancient defenses. I suggest we don’t stumble on them.”

\---

Moonlight reflected off of their buckles and the unfinished edges on their armor as they climbed over the outer wall and onto the manor grounds. Firi’s prosthetic still buzzed with the magic captured from the flimsy ward on the walls. It made her stump ache and she felt phantom pains where her hand used to be, like the anchor was tearing her apart again.

Fenris met her eyes and clasped his left wrist with his right hand. Firi shook her head and then jerked it towards the hedgerows that lined the outer garden. Between hedges as tall as the Iron Bull sat thick topiaries sculpted in the shapes of desire demons and lithe animals. For a moment, Firi appreciated the artistry and how the forms were kept even without magic. Then the significance behind the placement of the animals with the desire demons made her skin crawl. 

Firi pulled out a stick with a magic focus off her back and waved it slowly in front of herself. Dagna had called it a Rod of Sensing, but it was a  _ focus _ on a  _ stick _ and Firi wasn’t in the mood to dignify it with a fancy name  _ or _ demean it with such a ridiculous one. It glowed when Fenris stood too close, but he slipped back into the shadows before she could shoo him. The crystal glowed bright green and Firi covered it with a linen handkerchief. The glow shone through, letting Firi sniff out the source of the magic. She walked halfway around the manor before the light turned a deep purple. Firi covered it with a silk bag and looked for the spell’s anchor.

In the corner of her eye, Firi saw the subtle, resonant glow in Fenris’ marks. They pained him. She knew from Varric, from the Tale of the Champion, and from the way the skin tightened around his eyes whenever he came too near her prosthetic. She’d made her feelings clear, but they felt foolish and hopeless when her own arm repulsed him. With a strong exhale far too emphatic to be a sigh, Firi breathed out the thoughts. They were on a mission. One Firi would complete without trouble, and then they would move on to bigger things with their recruits and soldiers in tow.

Fenris found the source first: a marble statue of Andraste kneeling before the Eternal Flame. It didn’t make sense. The Eternal Flame came  _ from _ Andraste’s death, didn’t it? Was it supposed to be a depiction of Andraste’s ghost? Was Andraste supposedly seeing a prophecy of her own future? Not that Chantry statuary ever made much sense to Firi. Veins of black marble cut through the plinth, but it wasn’t cheap material or an artistic choice. Echoes of blood mage pulsed from the thick, black lines. Fenris gestured between his head and the plinth, twisting his wrists and wiggling his fingers purposefully.

Firi understood some of it: he recognized the ward, probably knew how to disarm it, but the minutiae were lost on her. Most of her time with Fenris and his motley crew of revolutionaries had been devoted to training with her prosthetic, but the former slaves used their silent language too much for her to be completely oblivious. She nodded to him and motioned the affirmative: right hand fisted with her thumb on the outside and then a knocking motion with her index finger pointing down in the middle of it. It was one of the few gestures she’d practiced enough for it to not feel wildly unnatural.

The corner of Fenris’ mouth twitched, hinting at amusement. He turned back to the plinth, activated the marks on his hand and thrust it inside the marble. He jerked it back like ripping a heart out of a slaver’s chest. Then the screaming began.

The plinth shattered, sending Andraste and the Flame tumbling to the ground, but the crash of stone was drowned out by the inhuman chorus of wails from the blood magic anchor in Fenris’ hand. He clenched his fist, which stopped the wailing, but resulted in fresh blood gushing out of the relic in arterial spurts. 

“I thought we were trying to be subtle,” Firi hissed as blood splattered on her and the rest of the garden.

“I know when to hide and the time is not now.” He tossed the broken relic aside and drew his sword. He carried the sword at an angle in front of his body and stalked forward. 

Firi followed suit, though she struggled to keep her blade steady. It was heavier than her signature weapon, an asymmetrical, ironbark greatsword better suited to precision than the plain, human-designed one she carried now. She wasn’t willing to risk damaging the last piece of her family while she practiced the Andruil-cursed fake arm.

Shadows slithered down the wall of Magister Priscus’ manor. They stretched and morphed like congealed Fereldan slop on the grass before scrabbling at the air and solidifying in lumbering shades. Firi swung her blade and Dagna’s enchantments flared to life. The runes fizzled, hissed and spit with green flashes as the magic dissolved the shadow essence. Screams of the dying scratched against Firi’s mind, souls released when the blood magic spells broke

They fought back to back. Firi’s braid thunked against Fenris’ cuirass when she spun to strike. The shades were innumerable, slipping down the walls like a waterfall. Fenris spoke through gritted teeth. “This is one of the ancient defenses. Blood and magic trapped and stored from every time a slave was beaten. Every tortured scream giving these foul magisters more power.”

“So we kill Priscus and the magic loses focus.” The stump of Firi’s left arm ached and felt frostbitten. They’d barely begun their assault.

“Their forms are bound to the shadows. We must move inside to weaken them and kill Priscus.” Fenris didn’t wait for confirmation before sprinting towards the bay windows. He leapt forward, shattering the glass with his vambrace. His sword cut deep into the sill as he passed through, but did nothing to break Fenris’ momentum. Glass crunched under him when he pivoted to face the shades.

Firi dove through the broken window and rolled to her feet. She raised her sword, but the shades didn’t follow them inside. They writhed and thrashed against the empty space, as if the window were both intact and impermeable. The quiet screams against Firi’s mind shifted in tenor from terrified shouts to furious, thwarted howls. She reached up to swipe away the alchemical blood from the ward, but ended up scuffing her own forehead with the void-begotten prosthetic. “Just like a magister. Too afraid of their spells to have proper defenses.”

“Quite,” Fenris returned. He turned his head, his ears twitching in the opposite direction as he listened. “There are slaves hiding in the servants’ passages.”

“Guess we’ll go through the main hall.”

Before Firi could walk past him, Fenris stopped her. “You’re bleeding.”

She looked down at herself. Her armor was drenched in the blood from the broken ward. “It’s not mine.”

Fenris reached down and grabbed her chin. He tilted her face up and to the side before using his free hand and trace along a thin cut. He released her. “You’re bleeding. Magister Priscus will be able to-”

“Then we’ll kill him before he does!” Firi evened her breathing as she brushed past Fenris and walked deeper into the manor.

The walls were covered in cream-colored plaster. Portraits of men and women with beady eyes and sagging jowls lined the corridor. Specks of blood hid among the gilded ornamentation on the frames - the only clue to what lay beneath the fresh plaster. The floors were slate covered with intricate, patterned rugs that showed signs of recent cleaning. A bronze sculpture of a yoked Qunari sat on a marble pedestal until Firi cut it down with her magic sword. The pieces clanged against the slate. Fenris raised an eyebrow at her, but didn’t break stride. 

The walls quaked and shuddered with magic. The vibrations - both physical and arcane - lead Fenris and Firi directly to the ballroom. No moonlight made it past the writhing mass of shades and magic that battered against the windows. Wrought iron standing candelabra lined the hall, dripping wax and blood onto the slate. Magister Priscus stood at the end of the hall, magic escaping them like flashes of lightning. They cackled and spread their arms. “So the rats found their way out of the larder.”

Without a word, Fenris sprinted forward, marks blazing before he was halfway to the magister. Firi didn’t follow. The darkness in the ballroom made her skin crawl. Priscus heard them break in; they chose to fight in the ballroom for a reason. As much as magisters, especially blood mages, loved dramatics, Priscus hadn’t chosen the venue for the aesthetics. With one eye on the Magister, Firi stepped into the deep shadows lining the walls. Her arm ached and pulsed: it sensed magic.

A skeletal hand snapped out of the darkness and Firi leapt back. Magic arced from the signet ring sitting loosely on the withered hand and fizzled out on her prosthetic hand. She shouted her defiance and swung her greatsword at the magister’s true form. Metal screeched against magic when a shield flared to life. Sickly purple magic skittered across the surface of the shield. Firi struck out again and again, the magic in her false arm eating most of the impact. She could hear Fenris fighting on the other side of the ballroom.

Until she couldn’t. His curses and grunts stopped with the sound of metal crashing into plaster. She didn’t have to turn to know he’d been thrown into a wall by the simulacrum. Firi could smell the stagnant water stench of the Fade, could hear demons fighting over who would offer to save Fenris’ life. Firi clenched her jaw. Her attacks came faster and the acid-green runes on her sword burned brighter. Finally the shield failed and Firi’s sword split the magister just has it had the statue. The candles snuffed out with Priscus’ life and Firi had only the light from her sword and prosthetic to light the way to where Fenris’ marks gently pulsed. 

Fenris looked up at her approach: conscious, but cross-eyed. She pulled him out of the crater in the wall. They sat with their backs against the wall in silence. Firi didn’t notice the shades over the windows dispersing until the setting moon beamed its light directly into her eyes. It hurt and she squeezed her eyes against the brightness, turning her face into Fenris’ shoulder. He slumped into her, silent. Firi scrambled to check his pulse, but it was strong and even: it was slave training, not death, that made him quiet. She sighed in relief and settled under his weight to sit out the rest of the night.

\---

Morning’s sunlight did little to lighten the ballroom. The crater where Fenris had been thrown into the wall spread from floor to vaulted ceiling. The impact site wasn’t overly large, but the plaster over old foundation lacked integrity and large chunks were ready to crash to the slate floor at the least provocation. Firi tilted her head to the side as she inspected it. Fenris was lucky the pieces hadn’t fallen on top of him after the crash, really. She tilted her head to the side as she examined the layers of blood between the plaster. She scrubbed the dried, flaking blood off her face and chin. It was itchy.

“And here I thought you were too frightened to fight,” Fenris said.

Firi looked over her shoulder at him. “I learned not to rush in when I was the only one with the magic, world-saving hand.”

“You can’t afford to give magisters the opportunity to prepare their spells.”

“We’re attacking  _ their _ bases. We’re not the ones being hunted. It takes a different approach.” Firi raised her chin in challenge.

“I suppose you have a point,” Fenris said. He looked around the ballroom, nose scrunching up at the trails of blood they left. “We have a bigger problem than recklessness.”

“What are you talking about? We killed the magister, neither of us was seriously hurt. Time to raid this place for relics and send the slaves to meet with our people.”

“If they haven’t already run.” Fenris picked up his sword and sheathed it on his back. “That’s not the problem. You were cut by the shades defending the manor.”

“It’s a scratch. I’m fine.”

“Until a blood mage comes to investigate and follows your blood back to our base.”

All of the blood drained out of Firi’s face. She braced herself on the broken wall with her real hand. She opened and closed her mouth a few times as she scanned the room herself. “...And there’s no way to know what’s my blood and what’s from the warding relic.”

A grim nod was her only answer.

“Falon’din’s saggy y-fronts!”

“Come. I will find us the proper cleaning materials.”

Firi cursed the entire way, exhausting the Elvhen pantheon with expletives. With one pointed exclusion that Fenris was kind enough not to comment on. They found a majority of Magister Priscus’ slaves hiding in the kitchen with the doors firmly latched. It took nearly an hour to convince them to open the door and their expressions were dubious even as they let Fenris in to collect a sack of white powder. They didn’t relax until Fenris reassured them with a series of complicated gestures Firi couldn’t follow. When they returned to the base, she would have to dedicate more time to learning the language, unwieldy left arm or no.

They left the kitchen with Fenris carrying a large, terracotta jug of vinegar and Firi with the sack of powder. It didn’t look like sugar or smell like flour, so Firi wasn’t sure what it was. It felt… dull. It was hard to describe, but the sack and its contents felt muted to her senses. She didn’t like it. At Fenris’ direction, she tossed it on the first stain.

She liked it even less when Fenris doused it with vinegar, resulting in a pungent white foam all over the floor.

“This is just making a bigger mess.”

“It denatures the blood, rendering it useless for blood magic.”

“It’s a waste of time! It was a couple of drops, at most.”

“If you leave your blood here, you cannot return with me.”

Firi took in a deep breath, but held her retort behind her teeth. The fine powder spread easily over the stains. She used her foot to spread out any thick patches her void-cursed arm dropped. The ballroom floor was covered in the foam when they moved back into the hall to retrace their steps through the manor. A slave came up to them, communicating exclusively in gestures and Fenris sighed heavily before responding in the same fashion.

“You’d think they’d trust your offer the first time,” Firi muttered.

“It wouldn’t be the first time they were offered false freedom.”

Firi winced and lowered her eyes to the floor. She wanted to kick herself. The mission should have been easy and it was… Mostly. They’d gotten in and killed the magister, but she couldn’t keep her blighted foot out of her mouth. When they reached the broken plinth, blood still sat in stagnant puddles around it. In a fit of pique, Firi just dumped the rest of the bag over them, stirring the pink mixture with one of Andraste’s arms.

Fenris met her eyes and gestured to Firi to step back before hurling the jugs at the pink goop. It shattered spectacularly, with pink foam flying in every direction after shards of pottery. He brushed off his armor and stood next to her. “If we had brought more people, you may not have been injured.”

“I told you. I needed to prove to myself that-”

“Was it worth all of this?” Fenris spread his arms wide. 

“Why can’t you just underst-”

“I do understand, Firiel,” Fenris said. His use of her full name stopped her heart in her chest. “I learned many lessons in my years of running.” He flexed his arm and between the armor plates, shiny scars reflected the late-afternoon light. “Is it so wrong to spare you learning them the same way?”

“Oh.” Firi’s cheeks flushed and wanted to look away, but Fenris’ gaze held her enthralled. “I- Oh. Thank you. It means… You know how I-”

“I do.” Fenris stepped close. Too close. Firi could barely breathe. He clasped her left arm, even though his lyrium marks flared violently. “I need-  _ we _ need a little more time.”

“And then..?”

“Then.”


End file.
